Cambridge, Mass. - Social media no doubt full of information and reactions from this week's scares in Boston.Chances are someone you're connected to online is affected.Newswatch 12's Kira Lynne has a friend who currently attends MIT in Cambridge, and spoke with her about her sense of security.Alli is a graduate student at MIT and has lived in Cambridge for almost 5 years.
She lives about a 10 minute walk from where the shooting happened.She says it's always been a safe community and never thought she would have to worry about a bombing suspect on campus, let alone the shooting of a police officer.She first realized something was wrong when she heard sirens at 10:30 Friday night.This was followed by emergency text alerts and phone calls through the night.Alli writes: "I felt safe in my apartment building at that moment, but it was still scary to not know what was really happening and where the shooter was. It was also scary to think that I had been walking through campus near the shooting location just an hour or so before it happened. I could have easily been there. I actually felt more afraid this morning when it was reported that [the] MIT shooter and suspect in Watertown was the same person as the marathon bombing suspect, and the fact that this person had been so close to me on my campus."While the campus was loud and chaotic Friday night, the request from city officials to stay home made for a different atmosphere Friday afternoon.Alli goes on to say: "It has felt eerily quiet with very few cars and people out and about, because all mass transit was shut down and people were instructed to stay in their homes, businesses not to open. All the universities are closed. There have been occasional bursts of sirens, and I've seen some police cars racing down streets nearby. It is hard to say what the rest of the city is like, I'm limited to the part I can see out my window, but around here it seems pretty deserted."Like all of us, Alli expressed her gratitude to area law enforcement and her thoughts go out to the family and friends of the slain MIT police officer.